Unplugging Evolutionary Algorithms: an experiment on human-algorithmic creativity

Understanding and emulating human creativity is a key factor when developing computer based algorithms devoted to art. This paper presents a new evolutionary approach to art and creativity aimed at comprehending human principles and motivations, behaviors and procedures from an evolutionary point of view. The results, and the collective artwork described, is the product of a new methodology derived from the Interactive Evolutionary Algorithm (IEA), that allowed a team of artists to collaborate following evolutionary procedures in a number of generations while providing interesting information from the creative process developed. Instead of relegating artists to merely evaluating the output of a standard IEA, we provided them with the fundamentals, operators and ideas extracted from IEAs, and asked them to apply those principles while creating a collective artwork. Artists thus focused on their inner creative process with an evolutionary perspective, providing insights that hopefully will allow us to improve future versions of EAs when devoted to art. This paper describes the methodology behind the work and the experiment performed, and analyzes the collective work generated, that eventually became GECCO 2013 Art Design and Creativity Competition award-winning artwork in Amsterdam.